


Two steps behind

by rilina



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-05
Updated: 2006-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilina/pseuds/rilina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saying goodbye is easier these days, Shikamaru thinks, now that there's the promise of seeing each other again before long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two steps behind

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for volume 28 of the manga.

Saying goodbye is easier these days, Shikamaru thinks, now that there's the promise of seeing each other again before long. He refuses to think too much about why farewells were ever hard; he suspects that doing so would only make them even harder in the future.

No one pays much attention to Temari as they walk through the streets of Konoha; everyone's become accustomed to seeing Suna's shinobi from time to time. That wasn't the case not so long ago, when the alliance was newly reforged and fragile in a way that she's never been. If anything's attracting looks these days, it's her damn fan, not her hitae-ite. In Suna, of course, where no one blinks at a puppeteer with all his gear, Shikamaru is still a curiosity.

She's walking two steps ahead of him, now three, and complaining about one of the other examiners. He's not really listening; he's heard this particular rant before, and most of his attention is elsewhere, on the pale lines of scalp running between her usual puffs of hair and the pure curve of her neck where it disappears underneath her kimono. It would be enough, he tells himself, if he could memorize her, keep that image when she was gone. No, that's not right; that would be pointless; each time he sees her, something else has changed. The wind never stops sculpting the desert, and one day the girl who's saved his life twice now will be gone, like a dune after a storm. She's already disappearing, slowly being worn away by time and duty and circumstance.

" . . . enter my team everyone will see what Suna can do."

"Your team?" he asks, not entirely sure when the subject changed.

"My future genin team." She throws him an odd look over her shoulder, one he can't read. "Gaara's been threatening to assign one to me ever since I made jounin."

Shikamaru tries to imagine Temari as someone's sensei and decides that the young Kazekage has a better sense of humor than he's given credit for. He tries to imagine himself as someone's sensei and decides that he has yet another reason to avoid being promoted.

"It sounds like you'd rather pass."

"I'm not really looking forward to years of doing D-rank missions with brats who haven't figured out that you need a lot more than good aim with a kunai to be a shinobi. And . . . it would change things."

In other words, no more trips to Konoha. "Surely you're too valuable to be tied down to a team."

"That's what I've been saying. Don't know if anyone's been listening."

They've almost reached the gate now. She pauses to adjust the fan on her back, giving him a chance to catch up with her. When he does, she flashes her feral grin at him; it sucks the slouch from his stance, if only for a moment. "So we'll see you in a couple of weeks?"

"Sooner, if the travel goes well." It usually does for her, which is probably one reason she's been running courier for this round of exams. "Don't get yourself killed while I'm not around to save you."

"Same to you. It would be a pain to renegotiate all the arrangements."

Her eyes disappear as she smiles again, but he can guess what they'd tell him if he could see them. You're a big sham, Nara Shikamaru. Don't think I don't know it.

Of course she knows it. He knows that she knows it. But neither of them is free to speak it. That's always going to be their problem.

At the gate, they shake hands and exchange their unremarkable goodbyes; she sets off at her usual brisk pace. He watches until she's beyond the reach of his shadow, then turns to start his long trek home.


End file.
